How long is the pandemic expected to last? What are the furthest out conferences that have been (or should be) canceled? How is the end of a pandemic even defined?
Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
81–90 of 436 posts
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The economic cost of the first scenario (numerous deaths in peak period) would likely be the highest with the impact This is self-evident, both due to first-order and second-order effects. How the author manages to stand it on its head is amazing. It's worth noting that approaching, or exceeding, the capacity of the medical system (or any other) drives the costs sky high by and of itself - not to mention other, unre…
> There is always the slowest country to act, and its citizens would feel entitled to the kind of far-fetched speculation the author posted. Sounds about right. Belgium and the Netherlands aren't doing very much yet. One interesting fact I discovered when discussing with my wife last night that I think does shape the discussion here: In the Netherlands, seasonal influenza has ~1% mortality rate -- in the U.S. it's mo…
>In the Netherlands, seasonal influenza has ~1% mortality rate -- in the U.S. it's more like 0.1%
Completely false, it seems 0.1% also in the Netherlands.
"In the Netherlands, our closest comparisons are the Mexican flu of 2009/2010, with a mortality rate of just 0.02%, and the regular flu epidemics, with an average mortality rate of 0.1%"
from:
https://healthcare-in-europe.com/en/news/on-the-implications...
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#83>The deathtoll would be immense.
Would it though?
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#84Had an interesting thought earlier. Seeing as a majority of deaths are in the range 60 years and above, and very little of the casualties affect younger (working) people, from the governments POV the virus will do well to decrease the disproportionate number of older pension receivers and nursing home residents in comparison with the dwindling number of young people working and paying taxes. In other words, the gover…
On the other hand governments are full of old vulnerable people who will be worried about succumbing to it themselves.
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I interpreted it like this: deaths are less expensive than lost productivity. This might actually hold given the groups that are the most at risk are probably least productive: the old and the infirm.
This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention. They're probably the only kind of diseases that hit younger population much harder than senior citizens. THOSE are the diseases that make the rich earn less money. From an ethical point of view, governments owe seniors the money and care, because they had worked for state prosperity. Also, if young people had more foresight, they would realize…
> This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention.
At least in my country, we spend radically more per-capita on healthcare for the old than we do for the young [1] simply because the old need more of it.
For men age 5-45 we spend less than £1000, for men age 80-85 we spend more than £4500. It's a similar story for women, but with a bump for women of childbearing age.
I don't see any evidence of a bias in favour of the working-age population.
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#86It’s almost tautologically true that the cost of closures are considered in the decision-making process. This “article” tries to portrait this entirely obvious fact as some sort of sinister conspiracy, with cargo-cult charts to appeal all scientify.
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not. It's just one guy making up random shit on a blog and is pretending that governments think like him. The reality is probably closer to the fact that there isn't anything governments can do about it. They can try to shut down the borders of the country, but that is going to a lot worse and probably won't stop it anyways. Just because governments can do something and do do something doesn't mean that that…
Denmark did close every school and most administrations. France did not. Many decisions can be taken, but are not (for various reasons). Most experts recommend to limit contacts rather than closing down borders, and no one is pretending to stop the virus but they all should try to flatten the curve. You don't seem to pay attention to the current situation.
The fact that they refuse to do things like closing borders and immediately ceasing all travel by foreigners or citizens who've traveled traveled abroad meanwhile ending arbitrary social events is the reason you know it's hype up media nonsense.
Most of the actions taken are those most likely not affecting those in the target older or immuno-compromised demographic likely to have the serious consequences.
https://omny.fm/shows/inside-the-huddle/03-dr-laura-power-on...
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#88Just a little thought experiment: If the current wisdom is actually that almost everyone will be infected eventually, wouldn't it (ignoring any ethical issues) be wiser to deliberately infect medical personnel as soon as possible, so the 5-10% of infected that need IC treatment can actually get it, before the medical system is overrun by the infected general population. In a few weeks, all doctors are immune (or dece…
Potentially, yes. But, only if by being infected, it would mean you were now immune, which isn't the case with covid-19. Reinfections have happened.
Is there any evidence of that at scale or is it just the odd anecdote?
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#89I think it's a different reason. Let's analyze the outcomes from game theory perspective, along two dimensions: virus becomes pandemic or not, and governments do something or nothing. 1) no pandemic, no action -> government was "right", avoided wasting money -> reelected 2) no pandemic, action -> government was "wrong", wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -> voted ou…
The idea of dividing the outcome up into two binary "it works" and "it doesn't work" is a logical fallacy. It's like the ridiculous anti-gun control arguments that say because a measure doesn't stop 100% of gun deaths, it's not worth doing at all.
Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat
#90I think this theory gives way too much credit to governmental competence. I think Yes Minister's Four Stage Strategy is a much more accurate assessment: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen. Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it. In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's…
Sounds like climate change denial.